24th November, 2008

Dear Member of ISCO,

Please find below a letter to you from Rear Admiral Michael L. Stacey, CB.

Michael has kindly undertaken to take on the work of collating information for the project ISCO is undertaking for IMO. I would be very grateful for your co-operation and support in this matter. All submissions will be acknowledged in the report which will be circulated to the many governmental and other delegations who are represented in the OPRC-HNS Technical Group.

Kind regards

John

Dear Colleague

You will be aware that last autumn ISCO was granted NGO status at the International Maritime Organisation (IMO). This is a privilege to which we in ISCO had long aspired and which we are extremely keen to retain. Our status is due for permanent review after the first two years, i.e. the autumn of 2009 and we are keen that by then we will have made sufficient impact on the organisation to ensure our  retention as an established NGO

We have already identified several areas of influence that we can exploit, but I believe that there is probably more that we could do through our membership of the OPRC HNS Technical Group. There is already separate work being done on the rationalisation of relevant IMO manuals and guidelines, but I believe that through our membership we could provide a unique complementary and useful record of live experiences based on our personal participation in HNS spill clean-up operations.

I am prepared to compile such a list with your help. Whilst imposing on you as little as possible could I ask you to send me details of any such involvement you, or your Company, might have been involved in over recent years. It would seem that the easiest way to do this would be for you to send a report to me by e-mail-no longer than a couple of pages and in accordance with a format, which I could build into a list of involvements and experiences. My-mail address is [email protected],.com 

Perhaps the following lay-out would help keep us all on the same line

Name

Company name

Location of incident

Brief description of incident

Response to include, response levels, need for external support, Government involvement, use of sub-contractors, accreditation requirements etc.

Cost of operations – compensation?

Lasting environmental effects

Lessons learnt – prevention of repetition,.

Recommendations

   In anticipation I thank you for your cooperation

                             With best wishes

                              Michael L Stacey

                              Member Executive Committee

Michael Stacey

Phone: 01252 713032

6 Headon Court

The Close

Tilford Road

Farnham GU9 8DR

UK